In recent years, there has been a lot of excitement surrounding the metaverse, captivating the interest of both investors and fans.
The metaverse offers augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR). After just three years, the metaverse hasn’t been able to live up to the hype, at least not in the corporate community.
The metaverse has captivated the interest of technology enthusiasts, investors, and futurists alike. It is defined as a communally shared virtual place where users can connect, mingle, and engage in numerous activities.
Tech behemoths like Disney and Meta (previously known as Facebook) have made significant financial expenditures in an attempt to control the metaverse amidst the enthusiasm and hoopla around it.
Nevertheless, the metaverse hasn’t lived up to its potential as of yet. According to tech journalist Ed Zitron in Business Insider, “The metaverse, the once-buzzy technology that promised to let people hang out awkwardly in a confusing world akin to a video game, has vanished when the business sector abandoned it. It had three years on it.
Even though it was inevitable, the end was predicted a long time ago.
As Zitron put it, one indication of the metaverse’s downfall was the money Meta lost on its metaverse investments.
The most active investor in the space was Meta, through its virtual and augmented reality research division, Reality Labs. In the metaverse, Reality Labs has lost $46.5 billion in investments since its founding in 2019. According to reports, Meta stopped presenting its advisers with their metaverse as a result of these losses.
In 2023, a little over a year after its founding, Disney slashed the metaverse division as part of a reorganization led by the company’s returning CEO, Bob Chapek, in an effort to save $5.5 billion in expenses.
In 1968, Ivan Sutherland introduced the first augmented reality display worn on the helmet, which marked the beginning of virtual reality as we know it today. In the 1980s and 1990s, gaming firms created and implemented the concept. When Oculus Rift, a company founded in 2012, introduced a superior virtual reality headset for gaming, both the device and the company garnered a lot of attention. Facebook paid $2 billion to acquire Oculus Rift in 2014.
The purchase occurred seven years prior to Facebook rebranding as Meta, which ignited the buzz surrounding the metaverse. Neither was Meta’s journey unique. The industry foresaw the need for tools to improve users’ experiences in the metaverse as part of their belief in the metaverse’s potential.
During the boom, VR and AR technology made tremendous strides toward realizing the metaverse. Offering immersive experiences and obfuscating the distinctions between the actual world and the virtual realm was their goal.
Meta has made significant investments in virtual reality and its metaverse. Even though it has been losing a lot of money in the metaverse, its VR investments have done better overall.
The $499 Meta Quest 3 VR headset was introduced by Meta in 2023. In 2023, Apple, one of its primary rivals, also unveiled the $3,499 Apple Vision Pro headset.
The VR “Market Research Report” published in June 2023 by Fortune Business Insights states that the US VR industry was valued at $19.44 billion in 2022 and has room to grow significantly by 2030.
Virtual reality items are in high demand among consumers as well. According to a recent KPMG survey, 61% of American consumers are willing to spend $200 or more on gadgets like virtual reality headsets that are utilized with the metaverse. Furthermore, VR has other advantages outside of the metaverse and gaming, such as in the fields of education and healthcare.
Owner of the technology-trend newsletter Global Guerrillas Report, John Robb, predicted virtual reality’s breakthrough as early as 2022, in the midst of the metaverse boom.
Claiming the future would be VR-dominated, Robb said, “2040 will feature an AR/VR mix, but it will mostly be AR, with applications applying digital overlays on existing reality. This will roll out as fast as smartphones did, but with many times the impact. It will be central to the work and private life of 3 billion-plus people by 2040. By then a half a billion people will be earning a living from working, selling, etc., in this environment.”
The development of VR technology as a mere tool for the metaverse is not contributing to its mothership’s demise.
Rather, virtual reality holds immense promise for life-changing encounters. Developers and innovators are still pushing the envelope, utilizing VR and AR to improve productivity, encourage creativity, and transform teamwork.
The creator of Moonland Meta, a Web3 gaming metaverse scheduled to launch in 2024, Miguel Palencia, told Cointelegraph that until “a few smart companies invested in quality products,” the video game industry was supposed to be extinct forty years ago.
“I don’t think the metaverse concept is dead at all, it’s just waiting for the right team and the right product to come along and define the generic ‘seal of quality.’ This should, in turn, lead legacy game studios to start bringing their IP to the industry.”
However, this new standard for quality metaverses could take a long time to develop, according to Andrey Baral, chief business development officer of CLS Global.
“I think that the future of metaverses is bright, however not in the near future. […] We have multiple very interesting metaverses with a growing number of users; however, ideally, it will take about a generation to transition.” He said in a statement.
VR and the metaverse combined seem like a viable application, particularly in professional contexts. As remote and flexible work arrangements become more common, the metaverse presents new opportunities for increased productivity and teamwork. Through applications like Google Meet or virtual workplaces like Gather, virtual reality (VR) has made it possible for teams to connect and work together across geographic borders.